Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the United States Senate, 1950-1951

AUGUST 9, 1951 Explanation of Why Names Were Made Public; Statement on Suspended State Department Officials Under Investigation Being
Allowed Access to Secret Files

Mr. McCARTHY. Mr. President, last
year I gave the Senate the names of
81 individuals whom I considered dangerous to this country if allowed to remain in positions of power. At the time
that was done there were constant demands upon the floor of the Senate,
many of them made by the then majority leader, former Senator Lucas,
who is no longer a Member of the Senate, that I make the names public on
the Senate floor. As I have stated, the
majority leader was Joined in this demand by a number of other Senators.
At that time I refused to comply with
the request, and explained why. I told
the Senate I felt that of the 81 cases
given the Senate, some were marginal
cases, in which the parties might well
prove themselves to be neither bad security risks nor disloyal, and that for
that reason I felt that the names should
be given to the committee which was to
be appointed, and should be given to it in
private, and that then, after the committee had completed its investigation, it
should decide which names were to be
made public.

In that connection, Mr. President, I ask
unanimous consent to have printed in the
body of the RECORD, at this point, statements by the Senator from Iowa [Mr. HICKENLOOPER] and myself, explaining
how it happened that certain names were
made public.

There being no objection, the statements were ordered to be printed in the
RECORD, as follows:

EXCERPTS FROM THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
EXPLAINING WHY NAMES WERE MADE PUBLIC

"As a member of the subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations now engaged
in the inquiry into the charges of the Senator
from Wisconsin. I should like to say that on
the day on which the Senator from Wisconsin
made his speech at some length on the floor
of the Senate, in which he referred to certain
cases by number, and so forth--I think it was
the 20th of February--at that time the Senator from Wisconsin repeatedly stated and restated on the floor of the Senate that he did
not want to make names public, that he
would not tell the names to the Senate in
public; and, time after time, the Senator
from Illinois, the majority leader, rose to
demand that he give the names in public, so
the whole country would know who the
people were that were suspected.

"The Senator from Wisconsin repeatedly
said, 'No; I will not make them public.' The
Senator from Kentucky, Mr. WITHERS, rose
and said he wanted to see the list of names.
The Senator from Wisconsin said, 'Come to
my office in the morning and I will show you
the names.' The Senator from Kentucky
said, 'Can I make them public? I intend to
make them public if I see them.' The Senator from Wisconsin said, 'No; if you are going
to make them public, I shall not give you
the names.'

"The CONGRESSIONAL RECORD is replete with
such statements on the question of the publicity of the names.

"Its is a matter of fact also that the junior
Senator from Massachusetts and I, both at
the first executive meeting of the subcommittee, suggested and proposed the procedure, that the subcommittee meet in executive session, call the Senator from Wisconsin
before it, and ask him to disclose the names
in private, together with whatever information he had in connection with the names;
but the majority of the subcommittee said 'No, this must be brought out in public.' So
they held their first hearing, requiring the
Senator from Wisconsin to come, in public,
to name the names. I tell the Senator that,
if he is not familiar with it, merely to keep
the factual history of the publicity of these
names accurate.

"I should like to say also that so far as I
am concerned, while we did not have the
machinery to set up a court of inquiry such
as the Canadian spy-ring case called for, we
did propose and urge that an inquiry in
secrecy without naming names be made with
the facts collected. But we were overruled,
and the Senator from Wisconsin was required, or requested, to come before the committee in public hearing, with kleig lights,
television, and all the rest of the fanfare of
such an emotional occasion, there to bring
out his cases, name names, and produce
facts."

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